This post is essentially born out of the way I think context is a concept vastly overlooked by people when choosing how to diet and train to fit their specific goals. On social media, it’s very easy to see how a physique athlete, bodybuilder and strongman eat and train, and it’s even easier to commit to applying yourself to a ready-made template designed by someone at a very different stage of their training life and with very different goals to your own.
So this point got me thinking. The concept of a physique (or strength) athlete is essentially based around peaking physically for very few set periods, be it a show, a meet or an event. The everyday trainer wants to look and feel good 100% of the time, or at least strive towards a long term goal over a long term period. As such, eating and training like a physique athlete isn’t optimal if that isn’t your goal. So, when your average Joe says that he wants to get bigger and leaner, he means he wants to get bigger and leaner by a means of constant progression, not to an end point of a specific day or time.
This isn’t necessarily just applicable to your average Joe. This is very like me too. I can’t train or eat like a physique competitor; I need to be lean pretty much year round as casting calls tend to come very sporadically and at very short notice (as anyone in the industry will attest to). As such, my goals are very similar to the average Joe, just proportionally different. So when people ask me on twitter about what I do when I “bulk and cut” they are usually quite put off by my answer, which is usually, “I don’t bulk or cut”.
Hear me out on this. Obviously, it takes time to build a physique. It’s taken me about two and a half years to get to where I am now; being 183cm, 82kg and my body fat varying between 8 and 11% (I get DEXA every 2 or 3 weeks). So I thought an interesting post would essentially be on how I do this. I’m not a competitive physique athlete or a strongman, so everything I do is fairly linear with the goals being progressive muscle gain whilst minimising fat accumulation.
Weight Training
For the past 3 months, I’ve been using a 3 day Push-Pull-Legs split. This very rarely changes, even up until the day of a casting or event. On top of this, I use Daily Undulating Periodisation (DUP). DUP is essentially the cycling of training protocols on a short term basis. I tend to use a 2:1 Volume to Strength training ratio. So, my first two 3 day PPL Cycles are volume based, and my third PPL cycle is strength based. This cycle repeats constantly. Why do I train like this? Well, I’m obviously “unassisted”, so I have grown to realise that traditional body part splits over 5 day periods just don’t work. I have found huge success in training muscle groups two or three times a week, as opposed to hitting them just once a week. I also use DUP because I believe it to be the absolute best method for progression. Progression in the gym is a very simple concept- you get bigger by using bigger weight in more efficient ways. My strength days essentially train me to be able to use progressively heavier weights on my high volume days. I believe volume to be the key to muscle growth, and progress by increasing volume is a relatively capped concept, so progress in this area is, in my eyes, best achieved through using progressively heavier weights, and progressively more volume (to a degree).
So essentially, my PPL-DUP training cycle includes 3 microcycles; strength, moderate volume, high volume, repeat. Strength days tend to focus around the core compound exercises. Leg day is usually Squats and GHRs, Pull day will be a deadlift variation, a pull variation and a row variation, and Push day will focus around the bench press and military press. My moderate volume days are what I guess you would call a traditional training style; 8-12 reps per set, more sets and a bit more exercise variation. The high volume day is often a giant set workout- I have recently been using the 6/12/25 protocol here. Over a 6 day period I tend to train legs two or three times, push twice and back once (I do this because my back is way ahead of my other body parts retrospectively). On top of this, I train HIIT with a weighted sled or a WATT Bike (not a spin bike) twice a week, usually on back and one leg day. I do incorporate some low intensity cardio, maybe once or twice a week for 20-30 minutes.
Nutrition
I think when you aren’t prepping for a very specific time period; people need to see nutrition in context, maybe more so than training. I’m not one of those guys who says its 80% nutrition and 20% training because that’s really not true and it’s a myth perpetuated by the same people who tell you squats are bad for your knees and that you can’t eat fast digesting carbs. I think diet needs to be flexible to a degree, and although I’m not a proponent of either clean eating or IIFYM, I think you need to strike a balance between the two. Flexible dieting is something I definitely promote. Hitting my macro targets is something I’m borderline obsessive about, but that’s not as bad as it may seem. I eat normally probably 90% of the time, but if my macros and calories allow, I will eat whatever I like. There’s absolutely no proof that two foods of equal caloric/nutrient density can have different effects on the body- if the macronutrients of a cake are equal to that of a chicken, rice and broccoli meal (hypothetically, of course), there is absolutely no difference between them. The concept of “clean eating” irks me a bit. What quantifies a food to be clean? Does it have bleach in it? Why is chicken breast “clean” and white potato isn’t?
Anyway, enough of the rambling. What do I do for diet? Most of the time, I stay in a very small calorie surplus. I’ve spent a lot of time adapting my metabolism to a higher calorie diet, and as such I can now lose body fat whilst consuming a relatively decent amount of food. I do eat a pretty high protein and high fat diet most of the time. I have absolutely nothing against carbs; I just find that anything over about 200g a day is too much for me. On a heavy leg day I maybe take in about 35% of my calories from carbs, but most of the time it’s about 25%. This is very specific to me though and I’ve only worked out that this works for me through a lot of trial and error- I’ve heard of people dieting down to sub 5% body fat whilst still consuming 45% of their total calories from carbs so it’s nothing particularly exclusive to everyone.
I’m usually given between 1-2 weeks’ notice before a casting, so that’s obviously not enough time to drastically change my physique; and that’s why I try to stay as lean as possible year round. I do tend to drop my calories to about 95% of maintenance in the week leading up to a casting and I do drop my carbs to about 20% of that figure, usually making that up in protein and a bit of fat. Post casting, I usually up my calories back to the small surplus slowly, usually adding about 50 calories a week. I am a big advocate of clever reverse dieting- altering calories drastically really isn’t going to do your metabolism any good and it will make dieting 10 times harder next time round.
Ok, I think that’s pretty much a wrap. I hope this post has given you some food for thought when it comes to how to train and eat for your goals. Flexibility and context is key- apply what you are doing to you and not to anyone else. Peace.
Patrick Chapman Fitness 
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